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Courtesy E3
Earlier, the Electronic Entertainment Expo was one of the biggest video game events of the year, with publishers of all sizes cramming a ton of ads in just a few days. But the Covid-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things, and now this year the fair is taking place roughly from June 12-15.
On the heels of Microsoft (Stock Code: MSFT)’s $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda owner ZeniMax, this year’s E3 was particularly important to the success of the Xbox Series X home console. Being a console with fewer exclusive and great games, Microsoft is using the acquisition To answer. And on Sunday, the company said Bethesda’s next big game, the fantasy role-playing game Starfield, will be exclusive to the Xbox platform and PC.
The game was first announced by Bethesda in 2018, and the game is now slated to release on November 11, 2022. It’s a change of heart for Bethesda, which was previously used to release games for PlayStation and Xbox systems, PC, and on Nintendo platforms as well, but these were The move is widely expected after the Microsoft acquisition. Another highly anticipated game from Microsoft, Halo: Infinite is set to release during the holiday season.
In all, Microsoft offered 30 games, 27 of which will appear on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Last week, the company doubled down on its subscription strategy, as Microsoft looked beyond hardware for its cloud streaming technology. By moving most of its computing work to a data center, Microsoft plans to bring games to more people through deals with manufacturers of TVs, and its own dongles — other than consoles, smartphones and PCs. Microsoft doesn’t seem to care much about the specific devices people use to play games, and more so that they play games under one of its subscription offerings.
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Also at the weekend, French video game publishing giant Ubisoft (UBSFY) gave investors concrete launch dates and windows for several big expected franchises. Unexpectedly, Ken Rumpf, gaming analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note Sunday that the Ubisoft event “did not provide any discretionary change news” — the publisher announced a surprising collaboration with Nintendo (NTDOY) for a sequel to the popular Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. . to switch.
Ubisoft’s offering also included an action game based on the James Cameron Avatar franchise titled Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora that will launch in 2022.
Silicon Valley video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) revealed Battlefield 2042 last week, the latest game in the Battlefield franchise. It’s scheduled to launch on October 22, but EA Play subscribers will have access on October 15.
Raymond James analyst Andrew Maroc wrote in a note Monday, “Although we are not yet ready to successfully predict the level of success of Modern Warfare (and our FY22 estimates for EA do not reflect that), we believe Battlefield still has a place in the absolute landscape. recent fire and that the BF2042 should provide a solid return, proving that reports of the franchise’s demise have been exaggerated.”
Microsoft’s stock rose 0.1% to $258.11 in Monday’s trading, as Ubisoft’s U.S. Depositary Receipts Traded rose 0.7% to $14.45. EA stock rose 1.2% to $148.11.
Write to Max A. Cherney at [email protected]
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